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Photo: Courtesy of Corinne Pinter

Just one day before Emily Pinter turned 2, she had a fall that changed her life. She was playing on a swing set when she climbed up a ladder and, instead of stepping down, she stepped off the play structure and fell 3 to 4 feet to the ground below.

If you aren’t familiar with the thyroid – the butterfly-shaped endocrine gland in the middle of your neck, located in front of your windpipe (trachea) – let’s get up to speed.

The thyroid gland functions primarily to influence metabolism, which is defined by how our bodies convert fuel from the food we eat into the energy need to survive. It does so by producing hormones, including triiodothyronine (T3) and thyroxine (T4), which also help regulate body temperature, heart rate and blood pressure.

PHOTO: Courtesy of patient, Danielle

Since the age of 8, Danielle Press has loved the sport of gymnastics. Training multiple days a week for years, the gym became her home away from home. Through hard work and dedication, Danielle ascended to the rank of level 10 gymnast.

As with any sport, injuries are an unwanted, albeit, inevitable reality.

“One day she was doing a drill on the bars and caught her elbow. It hyperextended and popped. We thought it was possibly dislocated,” Sarah Press, Danielle’s mom, explained.

PHOTO: Courtesy of patient, Natalie

It was the heat of Texas summer and Natalie Boyd was preparing to start her senior year of high school. Natalie, who was no stranger to medical challenges, noticed a bump on the ridge of her left shoulder.

“I didn’t think anything of it at first. I had scoliosis (an abnormal curvature of the spine) since fifth grade and that shoulder was always a bit larger as a result,” Natalie said.

Over the course of the next few months, though, as Natalie monitored it, the bump continued to grow. She and her family thought, perhaps, it was related to a previous spinal...